I recently spoke with former WWE star Bob Holly. In the first part of the interview below, Holly discussed his early career, working as a job guy with Ricky Steamboat in WWF, working with Ric Flair in WCW, signing with WWF, being given the "Sparky Plugg" gimmick and more.

Make sure to check back later this week for the rest of our interview, where Holly discussed the Attitude Era, if he ever thought about jumping to WCW during the Monday night wars, getting injured in a match with Brock Lesnar, not being ready to be in the title picture, ending CM Punk's streak, working with Punk, hypocrisy with the WWE Wellness Policy and much more. You can also follow him on Twitter @TheBobHolly.

You can also purchase his book, The Hardcore Truth: The Bob Holly Story, at Amazon.com by clicking here.

Wrestling INC: You entered the business with wrestling school in 1987, is that right?

Holly: It was actually before that. It was near the end of '86 down in Pensacola, Florida. It actually wasn't a wrestling group or anything. It just happened to be somewhere where they opened a school to train people and a way to make money, of course. And it ended up becoming a wrestling organization after that, but I don't think there was any intention of it becoming a wrestling organization other than it being a wrestling school.

Wrestling INC: What attracted you to the business? Were you a fan growing up?

Holly: Oh my God, yeah. It's funny you talk about that because I have a book out, The Hardcore Truth: The Bob Holly Story, and I talk about that in my book, how everything evolved as far as how I got into the business and stuff, but I fell in love with wrestling the very first time I laid eyes on it. That was when, I think I was in the fourth grade, I believe. We had just moved from Glendale, California to Oregon. When I was a kid in Glendale, California I was a huge roller derby fan. And go figure, because roller derby I come to find out's a work also.

I just had this huge passion for the way the whole fight game and everything, how angles worked and how fights all came about and how storylines were, were people mad at each other and all this stuff? I thought roller derby was the greatest thing in the world and that's what I wanted to be, I wanted to be a roller derby guy. And actually the women were more exciting. Watching the women fight were more exciting than the men. But anyways, so when we did move to Grants Pass, Oregon the very first wrestling program I ever saw was Big Time Wrestling out of Sacramento, California. Pat Patterson, Pepper Gomez, Bob Roop, Jimmy Snuka was in there here and there, gosh, Masa Saito. Guys that go way back and stuff were the main names and it's funny because I never thought, back when I was watching Big Time Wrestling out of Sacramento, California, would I ever work side by side with Pat Patterson. It just blew me away when I first met Pat.

Of course, later on that night there was another wrestling program that came on. It was called Portland Wrestling. I fell in love with [it]. You had all the top guys come through there. A lot of guys started there like Roddy Piper. He was the big time heel, and then turned baby face in Portland. Tom Prichard was there. Dutch Savage, you had Bull Ramos, Jimmy Snuka was there, Jesse Ventura, Buddy Rose, gosh, everybody who became somebody wrestled in Portland, Oregon. I thought that was the absolute greatest, it was an hour program. Saturday night came along, 8:30, I didn't go out with my friends or nothing. I stayed home and watched wrestling. In order to answer your question, yes. I was a big time wrestling fan.